ESG-efforts pay off
Even though the political momentum behind sustainability seems to be waning, medium-sized transport and logistics companies should not let up in their ESG efforts. After all, it attracts customers, facilitates financing and is an important criterion when recruiting staff, particularly younger applicants.
These key points were discussed on Tuesday during the panel debate ‘Environmental, Social, Governance: challenges or opportunities for medium-sized forwarding companies?’, organised by the DSLV forwarding association.
‘ESG is an important part of our employer branding’, emphasised Sandra Achternbusch, who is responsible for corporate sustainability at the Fiege Logistics Foundation. ‘Three times more applicants look at our sustainability report than our management report,’ she said, confirming its importance — a view echoed by Stephan Opel, managing director of general cargo cooperation NG.Networks, who was speaking on behalf of its shareholders.
ESG is also playing an increasingly important role in investment financing. This encompasses both risk management when granting loans and strategic financing products, as Marlen Rürup, who is responsible for ESG & Sustainable Finance at the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV), explains. While ESG factors are certainly considered in risk assessments, they are not usually reported separately.
However, a sector score already exists for general assessment purposes, and a more detailed assessment is carried out for large companies. While Rürup cannot yet name any general values, she believes that, in the long term, the difference in interest rates between companies that can demonstrate their ESG efforts and those that cannot will increase. At the same time, however, savings banks are developing strategic financing products to support companies in investing in sustainability.
Ultimately, banks have already developed considerable expertise in sustainability in logistics, says Fiege manager Achternbusch. She has been able to learn from this expertise and the existing benchmarks.
So, what do customers think? Opel notes that ESG aspects are already being included in tenders, and that there is a willingness in some cases to honour such efforts. However, given the market situation, many customers are reluctant to pay for this. Nevertheless, Markus Krämer, CEO of HGK Logistics & Intermodal, believes that a bespoke agreement with each customer is necessary. Firstly, ESG-oriented concepts must be economically viable; they must be operationally feasible; and thirdly, customers must be willing to contribute to investments, prices or contract durations. (la)
